


The Man with a Shield

by Em_Jaye



Category: Captain America (Movies), Thor - All Media Types
Genre: Awesome Howling Commandos, Family Feels, Gen, Tumblr Prompt
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-07-04
Updated: 2017-07-04
Packaged: 2018-11-23 10:29:31
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,817
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11400717
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Em_Jaye/pseuds/Em_Jaye
Summary: A cupcake at midnight on the Fourth of July. It's tradition in Darcy's grandmother's house.





	The Man with a Shield

**Author's Note:**

> I wrote this based on a Tumblr prompt about Steve having a connection to Darcy's grandparents.
> 
> In my headcanon, Darcy's grandparents (at least on her mother's side) are Polish, okay? And I based Ruth almost entirely off of my neighbor of the same name, who used to tell us stories from the old country in her wonderful accent and who is now swirling in the heavens.
> 
> I wrote it out of love and the deepest respect for all who suffered in the holocaust and mean absolutely no disrespect if I got any of the historical details wrong. This is unbeta'd and probably a mess, so please read at your own risk.

Goddamn was it hot.

Granted, Steve had figured that Fourth of July weekend—no matter where he was—was always going to be hot. But in the small, cramped upstairs bedroom of a hundred-year-old home in North Haven, Connecticut, sharing what was essentially a single bed with his perpetually chilly girlfriend who insisted on tucking the sheets and blankets around herself…

Goddamn.

It was hot.

A sheen of sweat prickled his brow and every attempt to move to get more comfortable produced a robust squeak from the hollow box-spring they were sharing. His left shoulder started to twinge with pins and needles and as he tried to shift again.

Darcy stirred in her sleep and managed to crack open an eye to shoot him a look over her shoulder. “You okay?” she mumbled, her full lips already stuck together with sleep.

“I’m just having trouble falling asleep,” he admitted, keeping his voice to a whisper. “I might go downstairs for a little bit.”

Darcy’s eyes had drifted closed again as a little half-smile tugged at the corner of her mouth. “Bubbe’ll love the company.”

He leaned over and pressed a kiss to her temple. “You want anything while I’m up?”

She shook her head. “Not a thing,” she said, pulling the thin sheets up over her shoulder.

Steve caught a glimpse of the clock in the hallway on his way to the stairs. Just past eleven-thirty. He sighed and wiped at his brow with the back of his hand and tried not to feel diminished by the long night ahead.

He reasoned with himself that it wasn’t like he’d be sound asleep if they stayed in New York either. That was one of the reasons Darcy had dragged him to the small town monotony of Connecticut in the first place. _Come home with me,_ she’d said a month ago, dropping into his lap and throwing her arms around his neck. _Breathe in some fresh air, play canasta with my Bubbe, eat too much and watch the fireworks. It’ll be good for you._

Any of those reasons would have been good enough on their own, but coupled by the way Darcy had tilted her head to one side and hooked him with her sparkling blue eyes and looked just a teensy bit hopeful… He would have been out of his mind to say no.

The fact that it also happened to be his birthday had only come up once, last week, when he’d finally asked if this was going to be some kind of guerilla surprise party and Darcy had scoffed and rolled her eyes. _I’d like to keep you speaking to me,_ she’d reminded before assuring him she’d never mentioned his birthday to her parents or anyone else in her family. _Trust me,_ she’d promised _this weekend is all about food and sunburns and my idiot cousins having a reason to light shit on fire._

They’d been in Connecticut for two days and no one had mentioned anything about Captain America or the other Avengers. No one had referred to him as anything other than Steve, Darcy’s boyfriend. No one had asked questions about Tony Stark or the Black Widow. It had been exactly what she’d promised: backyard meals, too much sun and too little sunscreen, mosquito bites, and kids playing the sprinkler and decorating the sidewalks with colorful chalk murals.

One of the many reasons he was grateful that, despite everything, he’d managed to wind up in the same time and place as Darcy Lewis: she seemed to understand and respect his wishes to let his ninety-ninth birthday go as uncelebrated as possible.

Steve hadn’t always been one of those people who didn’t like to celebrate his birthday. When he was a kid, his mother had him convinced for a while that the city set off fireworks each year just for him. They’d never had much of anything, but Sarah Rogers had always gone out of her way to make July Fourth a special day for him, no matter what.

When he was older and it was only him and Bucky, the city’s patriotic festivities had always guaranteed there’d be something they could do to celebrate for free—even if it was just watching the parade and the fireworks from the rooftop of their building.

It was only recently—only since he’d woken up—that he started to dread it. It wasn’t just a birthday or a personal milestone anymore. It was a joke. A tagline for the gossip rags. _The youngest old man in the world. America’s hottest senior citizen._ Each one another jab at the circumstances that had rerouted his life and brought him into a century he still didn’t quite understand. Each one a reminder that he should have died a long time ago. That he didn’t belong here.

The stairs squealed and clicked under his weight as he descended the last of them and found himself in the living room. The air was considerably cooler down here and a light breeze ruffled the sun-bleached lace curtains as he made his way to the kitchen, careful not to step on any of the stray toys Darcy’s younger cousins had left out.

A warm, yellow light beckoned to him from the kitchen. He was unsurprised to see the refrigerator door open and beneath it, the skinny, spider-veined legs and blue fuzzy slippers of Ruth Mendlowitz.

Darcy’s Bubbe didn’t seem at all surprised to find him lurking in the doorway. The corner of her lips turned up in a smile as she welcomed him into her kitchen. “Hotter than a witch’s tit in that bedroom Darcy sleeps in,” she said, the lilting remains of her accent made her mix-up sound much more musical than they would have if anyone else had tried. Steve couldn’t help but smile back as she shook her head and poured two glasses of water from the blue pitcher she kept in the fridge. “I figure one of you would end up on the couch before the end of the night.”

He sat across from her at the small, yellow Formica table and accepted the glass she passed him. Ruth held her glass up and offered a little grin. “To night owls,” she said, clinking a toast before they each took a sip.

“Anything in particular keeping you up?” he asked when he set his glass down.

Ruth smiled again. “Tradition,” she said, rolling the _r_ just a little more than she probably meant to. Her eyes went to the clock above the stove. “Tomorrow is my favorite holiday—I always like to be awake to greet it.”

Steve felt himself smiling at the way her eyes sparkled like her granddaughter’s when she mentioned the holiday. He nodded. “Darcy’s mentioned that,” he said. “She said she used to steal…what was it?” he paused in thought. “Firework cupcakes? From your house when she was a kid.”

His companion chuckled. “Cupcakes, candies, sweets,” she let out a little sigh. “I spoiled that girl every chance I got.”

“She turned out alright just the same,” Steve assured her. “But she’s done nothing but talk about these cupcakes for weeks,” he said. “I have to admit I’m pretty curious.”

Ruth giggled like they were flirting. “We wait until midnight,” she insisted, pointing a crooked finger at him. “Tradition.”

“Right,” Steve said with a nod. “Tradition.” He cleared his throat and took another sip of water before he asked, “If you don’t mind my asking, what started this tradition?”

The playful grin dropped slightly and she glanced down at the crack in the tabletop. “It’s…bit of a long story,” she said after a moment’s consideration. She pressed her lips together and raised her eyes, looking like she was about to say something before she withdrew again and shook her head. “You probably hear it a million times before.”

He frowned in confusion. “Not from Darcy,” he said. “She said you never told her why it’s your favorite holiday.”

Ruth paused again and appeared to be choosing her words carefully. She pressed her hand over her left arm and pursed her lips. “Not the happiest story to share with my _ketzile,_ ” she said finally before she looked up and took a deep breath. “But since you ask—and since I said I share my cakes with you—I tell you.”

When she moved her hand away, Steve noticed what she’d been covering. What he’d somehow missed before. A smudge of blue-green ink. A faded serial number that had been punched into her skin. His stomach clenched and he swallowed back all that spitfire he’d felt as a teenager, reading the news and watching what was happening in Europe, waiting for his chance to go and fight, to stop what was happening.

What _had_ happened.

What had happened to Ruth and millions just like her.

“They took us first to Poprad,” she said, keeping her eyes on her fingers and her broken cuticles. “And then my brother and my papa went to Belzec, I think,” she pursed her lips under the effort of memory. “And my sisters and mama and me,” she paused again and rubbed absently at the mark on her arm. “Well,” she moved her shoulders in a little shrug.

“Auschwitz,” Steve finished softly, his mouth running dry again. Darcy had only told him that her grandparents both left Europe after the war. That they’d met in Brooklyn and that neither liked to talk about what had happened before that. “How old were you?” he asked before he could stop himself.

She raised her eyes. “I was eight when they came for us,” she said definitively. “They kept two of my sisters at Auschwitz because they were twins…” she took in another shallow breath and shook her head. “I was so jealous because they got to stay together.”

“And your mother…?”

Rush shook her head a second time. “She died before they did, I think.” She cleared her throat. “But I was strong for my age—bigger than the other girls—so they put me and my oldest sister, Eva, on the train and sent us to work at Struthof.”

Steve’s brow furrowed again. “Struthof?” he repeated, the name ringing a bell in the far reaches of his memory. “Natzweiler-Struthof?” A smaller camp. Eastern France. Not as heavily guarded as some of the others.

She nodded. “We were there for about a year. My sister was so sick from the bad water, I thought she was going to die. So,” she pursed her lips together a second time and seemed to be urging herself to continue. “So one night, I sneak out of bed to find her some fresh water. I think maybe I’ll to the pump where the soldiers drink. Steal some for her and sneak back to bed before I’m caught.” She shrugged. “I probably would have been shot if they’d been paying attention.”

He frowned. “Why weren’t they?”

The corner of Ruth’s thin lips quirked into a small smile again. “There was a problem,” she said, “in the forest around the camp. Lots of explosions and gunfire. I could hear them yelling at each other to go and see what was going on.” She paused, the time more for dramatic effect. “I waited behind some barrels outside of our barracks. One group went and when they didn’t come back, another group and then another and finally,” she looked up with a shrug. “Only one group left. I watch them fight about who would go and who would stay and then they go and they chain the doors to all the buildings shut. And I think maybe this is it. Maybe they’re going to burn it all down—”

Steve felt his breath catch in his throat as he waited for her to continue.

“But they all go. They chain the gates behind them and…” she shrugged again. “And they go.”

Steve frowned. “They left you all alone like that?”

She tilted her head to one side thoughtfully. “It was middle of the night,” she reasoned. “Everyone would stay in one place until they got back. Walls thirty feet high, full of wire and broken glass…” she shook her head. “Trying to escape was suicide.”

“So how long did you wait?”

“Felt like hours and hours,” Ruth admitted. “I could get to the water fine, but I couldn’t get it back to my sister. I had to wait for them to come back and unlock the chains and by then they’d see me and I’d be dead.” She sighed, a distraught child again, weighing her impossible odds. “So I wait all night, trying to think of a plan. Waiting for them to come back and for them to find me. Hoping my sister isn’t angry when she wakes up and finds me gone.” Ruth stopped her story again and took another sip of water. “And then…just before dawn, someone comes to the gates. Just one man.” She raised her eyes again, the corners crinkled with a smile. “A man with a shield.”

Steve swallowed hard and held his breath as the memory of that day returned in force. His team had been dismantling a Hydra base only a few miles away when the Nazis had arrived in waves from the nearest concentration camp. It had been a long, bloody night in the dead of summer and by the time he’d arrived at the gates of Struthof, they were already a day behind in their hunt for Schmidt.

He’d wanted to go in, he remembered. To check for any survivors and secure the area, but there had been no time. He’d only broken the chains on the gates and pushed them open, hoping there would be enough time—enough Allies behind them—to liberate the camp entirely. The rest of the 107th was only a half a day’s march behind them, Bucky had reminded him. They’d take care of the rest.

Across the table, Ruth’s eyes welled for a moment before she blinked her tear away and smiled. “I must have fallen asleep after that,” she confessed. “Because when I woke up, the Allies were in our camp. All the chains were gone and they were saying we were free. One soldier, he picked me up and I asked him what day it was,” her eyes sparkled again. “I just wanted to know what day so I could remember. And he said it was July the fourth—Independence Day.” She let out a wet laugh and wiped at the corners of her eyes with the back of her hand. “I don’t know he’s American,” she admitted sheepishly. “I thought that’s what they said when they liberate any of the camps.”

Steve smiled and swallowed down the lump in his own throat.

“It’s not until I come to the country and I see the pictures of the man with the shield. In the books and the movies.” She shook her head. “I try to tell my sister that this is the man who saved us, but she doesn’t believe me.” Ruth reached across the table and clasped his fingers tightly in her own. “But I remember that man.” She looked over her shoulder at the exceptionally decorated plate of cupcakes. “And so I bake him a cake on his birthday every year.”

Steve felt his breath leave him in a little _whoosh_. “You bake all this for a stranger’s birthday every year?” he asked, shaking his head in disbelief.

Ruth squeezed his hand again. “Not a stranger anymore.” She blinked away any hint of tears in her eyes and got to her feet. “And I bake them for me, too,” she said with a little scoff. “It’s very good cake.”

Steve laughed with her and watched her careful movements as she selected a cupcake for each of them and returned to place one in front of him. “You didn’t have to do that,” he said finally, while she moved to the little drawer beside her stove and removed a lighter and two small red candles.

“You didn’t have to do what you did, either,” she reminded when she sat down and placed a candle in each cupcake. She looked up with a grin that made him wish he’d been the one to pick that little girl up from behind the barrels and tell her she was free again. “Come on, Steven, it’s tradition. We make a wish.”

He smiled back and accepted her hand again when she reached across the table to lean in and blow out their candles together.

She looked over her shoulder at the clock on the stove and looked back as it ticked over to midnight. “Happy birthday, Captain America.”

And for the first time in what felt like a long time, Steve didn’t mind the title at all.

He squeezed her hand once more. “Happy Independence Day, Ruth.”

**Author's Note:**

> Happy Independence Day to all, may you find freedom wherever you need it most.


End file.
